The Hero’s Journey of the User

What follows is a little bit of fun, but one that may help you take another look at how you are planning your user journey in gamified systems. In storytelling and therefore in games there is a structure that is well known and well used called the Hero’s Journey or Monomyth. It was first described by Joseph Campbell in 1949 to show how many myths all followed a very similar structure. In the modern world, it can be seen in stories such as Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings. It can be seen in video games as well, one example being the Zelda games.

The basic idea is that a normal person is given a calling to go on an epic adventure. They may refuse, or just go along with it. Before they get too far they are helped by a mentor of some sort. Soon they leave their normal life and enter the world of their adventure. Along the way, there will be trials and temptations, ups and downs, loss and gain. Eventually, the Hero will have gained enough skills to achieve their goal. After this, they will have to return to their original “normal” live. This may also be filled with new trials and need more help, but when they return they will never be the same. They will have to come to terms with being one foot in their old world and one foot in their new world. With this, they master their new understanding and can share it with others.

The original Monomyth contains 17 steps across three distinct phases. This has been reduced and changed by others. Below are the original steps – check out Wikipedia for the details though.

Departure

The Call to Adventure

Refusal of the Call

Supernatural Aid

The Crossing of the First Threshold

Belly of The Whale

Initiation

The Road of Trials

The Meeting With the Goddess

Woman as Temptress

Atonement with the Father

Apotheosis

The Ultimate Boon

Return

Refusal of the Return

The Magic Flight

Rescue from Without

The Crossing of the Return Threshold

Master of Two Worlds

Freedom to Live

For our gamified User Hero’s Journey, I have chosen to use just nine steps of these steps. Also, for added enjoyment -I have merged it with Amy Jo Kim’s Player Journey!

How does this translate to gamification? Glad you asked!

Departure

Call to Adventure

Your entry into the system. The moment you get an email with a link to click on, or a tweet that looks interesting.

Super Natural Aid

In our gamified system, this is the tutorial and on-boarding phase.

Crossing the Threshold

Once the user is armed with enough information, they are tested to make sure they are ready for the journey ahead.

Belly of the Whale

Once in the system, they are willing to carry on with the trials that face them.

Initiation

The Road of Trials

The day to day tasks of the system, where the user gains more skills and faces more challenges on their way to mastery. This is the Habit Building stage of Amy’s journey.

The Boon

A final reward, something the user has been working towards. This may be a trophy (but I hope it isn’t), it could be a new understanding of something – either way it is something that was worth all the work.

Return

Crossing of the Return Threshold

Now the user is ready to enter the final stages before mastery but must face a final test.

The Master of Two Worlds

The user knows what they needed to know now, they understand your system and why they should be using it. All doubts are now in the past.

Freedom to Live

Mastery at last. They are using your system for purely intrinsic reasons now. They are now the type of user who understands its importance and will evangelise its use.

If you can start to think of your user’s journey in terms like this, you can see it is far more than just giving points and badges to people. That will only get them to The Boon!

About Andrzej Marczewski Gamification Consultant with Motivait. I love to write about it, talk about it and bore people to death with it! If you really want to get to know me, check out the About page.

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